Mandy (2018) – Review

Review Mandy

Watching a movie starring Nicolas Cage has been a gamble for years. At the start of his career he seemed to think about the the roles he played, but those days have long gone. As a result he’s starred in many bad films, which you might still watch hoping that he will go “full Cage”. A quick search of YouTube will show you videos celebrating those type of moments. For every Joe or The Trust you can name at least five bad films. Mandy had quite a buzz before its release, so is this one worth watching? Continue reading

Searching (2018) – Review

Recensie Searching

How much time do you spend behind a screen every day? If you had an app that would keep track, you might be shocked. We know the interfaces that we use in detail. Nevertheless, in many cases, films and series often choose to present us with an interface that is unfamiliar to us, even if it takes place in the present. A screen that has been specially designed for a film and should look sleek. As a result, as a viewer you have no strong connection with what you see. Searching is an exception. It is a film that takes place completely in operating systems that we know: Windows and Mac OS. Continue reading

Skyscraper (2018) – Review

Review Skyscraper
We all feel a need to categorize the movies we see. It makes it easy to compare them to other in the (sub)genre and at the same time display our knowledge of the movie landscape. In most reviews I read about Dwayne Johnson‘s new movie Skyscraper (which is about a security analyst who has to save his family out of a burning tower taken over by some evil guys) it was compared to Die Hard and The Towering Inferno. But I don’t think you should make the comparison as those movies were quite different. The Towering Inferno was a disaster movie which happened to be about a fire in a high rise building. Die Hard was an action movie like this one, but a lot more realistic and believable. It’s better to not make the comparison and look at this movie for what it is: A summer blockbuster movie which wants to entertain its viewers by giving them a thrill ride. Continue reading

Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (2016) – Review

Review Cassette a mixtape history
Nostalgia is something everyone and every generation goes through. If you look at the eigthies (for example Back to the Future) people were looking back at the fifties. It’s understandable. As people get older they long for the period they were growing up, so things which were popular 20 to 40 years ago are suddenly more popular. Whether it’s the TV shows you watched as a kid, the toys you played with or the game consoles that were popular when you grew up, people start looking for them again or collect them. It sometimes can also mean the resurgence of old formats. We already have seen this happening with LP’s, but this documentary shows it is also true for cassette tapes. Continue reading

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) – Review

2018 Blindspot films

On this year’s blindspot movies list I had added two eighties movies, which both had to do something with aliens. I decided to check out The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension first. There is something about movies from the eighties which I really appreciate which isn’t only because it is the era in which I grew up. The movies from that time have a certain feel and CGI wasn’t a big thing yet, which would mean a lot more creativity to realize some ideas. Because of that some things feel a lot more real and actually have weight as things were physical. This is also the case here. Continue reading

78/52 (2017) – Review

Recensie 78/52

Unless you have encyclopedic knowledge about Alfred Hitchock and his work, the title of this documentary will not give you any idea what it is about. That’s bad marketing in my opinion and the only reason I knew about this film was because I read about it being shown at a film festival. Had I come across it another way I wouldn’t have even given it a look. The movie also doesn’t explain its title, but the numbers reference the infamous shower scene in Psycho. 78 different camera angles were used and there are 52 cuts to create an iconic and influential moment in movie history. It was a scene that took 7 days to shoot, which in the end resulted in only 45 seconds, which were very effective though. Is it possible to analyse that during an hour and a half in an interesting way? Continue reading

Gods of Egypt (2016) – Review

Review Gods of Egypt2018 Blindspot films
When I announced my list of blindspot movies for 2018, I got the most reactions (both here and on my Dutch site) about why I added Gods of Egypt. Why would I want to see this film? Some told me it’s a movie you want to switch off after 20 minutes. Of course I knew about the criticism the movie got, but that made me even more curious. So it was the first movie I watched on that list. Did I start out right? Continue reading

Making Fun: The Story of Funko (2018) – Review

Review making-fun the story of funko
If there is one pop culture item which has seen a true explosion of popularity it probably is the Funko Pop characters. The big-headed, cute-eyed figures which are available for almost every pop culture character available can be bought almost everywhere and they are a great way for fans to show their love for something. This Netflix documentary is part looking at how the company became as big as it is and part just a look into the lives of some Funko collectors and the special place these figures have in their lives. Continue reading

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) – Review

Recensie Solo A Star Wars story
Up till now most people I talked to about upcoming Star Wars movies, responded that they were looking forward to them. That changed when it came to Solo: A Star Wars Story. Personally I never had a huge connection with Star Wars (only watching them for the first time on VHS in my late teens) but I have been enjoying most of them (forgetting about the first three prequels), so to me this would just be something along the same lines as Rogue One only this time with a character we already know.

Of course Han Solo is one of the most iconic characters in history and maybe that’s the reason people were hesitant about a film looking at his backstory. As we’ve seen with for example Alien: Covenant, sometimes you don’t want answers to some questions. I personally didn’t need an explanation how the Xenomorphs came into being. They should remain a mystery as that just adds to the legend of a character. Some people had the same idea about Solo. But the film is now here so we can find out if this is a film that should have been made and if it indeed demystifies the legend that is the man who did shoot first. Continue reading

Deadpool 2 (2018) – Review

Review Deadpool 2

When Deadpool came out in 2016 it was a breath of fresh air amongst the overload of superhero movies. The formula of them was well-known and for some people the fatigue started to creep up. It was a film that wasn’t what you were expecting. It managed to shock, not take itself seriously and make fun of a lot of things, including other superhero movies. I had a blast watching it and was looking forward to the sequel. Would it be possible to follow the original up with something just as fresh? Continue reading